


Fire For A Heart

by morepopthanpunk



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Car Accidents, Falling Out of Love, Fire, Last words, M/M, Oops, Past Relationship(s), Recreational Drug Use, Songfic, larry angst, liam swears, louis has a fascination with fire, missed phone calls, there are major fire metaphors here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 18:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4887658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morepopthanpunk/pseuds/morepopthanpunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire...<br/>It’s quite funny how little patience the world has. How it will rush people into love when the timing is right, not caring how fast they’ll fall out of it or who gets hurt in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire For A Heart

  
****

**~~~**

His bags were packed. His mind was made up. He had the whole world outside waiting for him.   
How could Louis actually leave Harry behind when in reality, he was Louis’ world. Well…  _was._

Louis hates this house. He hates walking down the dead straight corridor with the barely white walls, and he hates having to make eye contact with anyone sitting in the living room before he can open the door to leave. He hates how that person tends to be Harry. He hates how the sight doesn’t give him the same pleasure anymore as it did those years ago.

Something today was different. Louis looked around. What desperate attempt at romance was this? Why candles? What was next; ambient music, slow dancing, rich red wine and expensive chocolates? The small tea lights illuminating patches of wall caused light to bounce off Harry’s features and his somewhat warm, yet definitely forced smile, highlighting every physical thing Louishad grown to love.   
But they were flickering… soon to go out. These things only last for so long.

He should have known if he played with fire, he was going to get burned.

Every part of Louis’ body aches, yet he doesn’t know why. His hands hurt as if he’s been physically holding on to what they had left, having watched everything slowly slip from his grasp. His face hurts from the way he’s been forcing a smile not just recently; but for what felt like years.   
Harry had been crying, probably for hours; but if it weren’t for the fact that Louis knew him so well, there was no way Louis would have realised. He was too good, too strong to make these things that obvious.  
Louis didn’t know how it felt to be the one who forced the cracks to finally appear…

Harry finally stood up, forcing himself off the chair, away from the lights around him into darkness. A darkness in which Louis refused to set himself alight just to let another see through. He’d made too many sacrifices for this relationship. Louis remained standing, un-wavered, unenthusiastic and unwilling to move. Harry forced his muscles to work, taking painful steps towards the smaller boy, pleading with his eyes for him to stay despite every previous discussion that this was the way it was going to be.   
Harry’s bottom lip quivered. Louis’ hands shook. Harry wiped tears from his cheek and Louis wiped the sweat off his hands and onto his jeans. Harry took a step forward, as Louis did backward: out the door and away forever, not a word spoken between either of them.

A seemingly permanent broken bond of trust now desperately hung in the air.

It is said that whilst one door closes, another one opens. But who said it had to be a different door?

The very same door opened behind Louis almost immediately, but he kept walking. Reactions meant everything and he needed to see how much Harry was willing to sacrifice to win back his everything. Not that much would be able to sway Louis’ decision. Harry called out for Louis and faster footsteps indicated he was running. Then they ceased. A thud hit the ground, and in time Louis slowly spun his head. The figure crawled up off the ground to resume standing upright and Louis re-aligned his head and kept walking, at a brisk pace. He didn’t know where he was going- away, if nothing else. He couldn’t choke out words, or even alter his facial expression as much as he may have wanted to. This was all up to Harry now.

Louis didn’t really like leaving people, especially people like Harry. But he’d done it before. If anything else, the first time he did it- it was humorous - how desperate they seemed to be. They’d spent a long weekend away together and were peaking in the honeymoon phase of the relationship… How could they have been so naïve to think it’d last forever? It must have been Harry influencing him, considering something as simple as going off to work became undesirable. He almost begged Louis to stay in his arms and he did… for a while. Louis eventually left and found that for him too, the day was hard; he craved Harry’s touch the whole time, his voice in his ear, and his hair tickling his neck, but they got through the day…

Who knew that after that phase it’d get so much easier? With more long weekends, came more time for work- away from each other. Over time it became much easier. Harry could spend nights out on the town and Louis would drown himself in work, no words spoken between the two for sometimes up to 48 hours at a time. Harry would try to make up for it later, but he was too blinded by infatuated love to realise their spark was dying.

Harry was like fire. He could not only spread warmth and be useful- but he could be just as destructive. The fire in Harry’s heart- his passion- his life- it became draining for Louis. It turned to stubbornness and an argumentative streak that couldn’t be shaken. That’s what triggered Louis to want to leave in the first place. A fight that turned to a screaming match with Harry that made Louis realise he was merely tolerating what he used to love.

You can build up resistance to almost anything.

The first time you near a flame, your hand will be pulled back almost immediately, the sensation too shocking to accept straight away. Over time, the stronger your hands get; the closer you can get to the flame until it’s a close of the palm away. Whilst you build up this resistance and you feel yourself getting stronger, it’s actually quite the opposite. You become numb- closing yourself off to feeling at all- losing it completely. Despite every denial that was exactly what was happening to Louis and Harry’s relationship. They rushed too close to the flame that was love. Harry still got a kick out of it- because he worked like a flame himself and fire can’t fight fire. But Louis felt numb, unable to see anything with Harry as exciting.   
Why was nothing exciting for him anymore?

Well, no. He was wrong in thinking that… drugs are exciting. So are speeding cars. So is risking everything, to reignite a flame you don’t know if you can control.   
Harry lived for the exciting. So he started by taking a risk, a small one compared to the things he’d end up doing.

He caught up to Louis and spun him around. His hands dropped down to Louis’ hips, thumbs tracing over the skin which had been painted in bruises over their years together. Louis didn’t pull away. Harry’s fingers dipped past the hemline of his skin-tight jeans- testing waters he should have been familiar with. Louis relaxed his previously tense shoulders, refusing to break eye contact, for fear he’d break the bridge Harry was trying to build between their hearts once more. Recently it had been pain, tears, doubt clouding the colour and filling the both of them with guilt, but now it was trust, determination, strength.   
Hope that this time it could be better.

Harry probably expected a movie scene; perfect like most of their relationship had been. At least on his end. They probably would have fucked. Louis would have smiled again. They would have had a long conversation about what love meant and they’d try hard to make things work between them, falling right back in love again, right back into each other’s arms, their destiny painted in the stars they’d fall asleep staring at.

_“No.”_

Louis tensed again, realising that there was a real reason he wanted to leave. He removed Harry’s hands from his hips, breaking eye contact and crushing any hope he gained in those few seconds of Harry’s touch.  There was no way he was going to do this. He did not love him anymore.  

He turned and kept walking. He just needed to get out of there. Get out of there and try to feel something once more. Get into his car and go away somewhere. Anywhere.  
So he did.

The more time elapsed, the more it actually began to seem like a movie- perfect relationship hits the rocks, guy gets in car, soon ricochets off a busy highway late at night. Killer love story.   
But movies, like life itself, are rarely this predictable.

~

Harry never really had much patience. He liked to pretend he did, but he didn’t. No matter how much Yoga he practiced, or inner Zen he channelled. Louis left and drove off and Harry couldn’t cope. It was catching up to him, he doubted everything they’d ever said to one another, he was breaking down and he had no one to pull him back up. Maybe that’s what Louis meant. He almost lit himself on fire for Harry when he was cold and dark and alone- dropping everything to be there for him constantly. Was that a sacrifice too much for Louis to continually make?   
He left erratic texts on Louis’ phone. He messaged him on every other social platform he could think of. No reply. He wasn’t thinking properly, so he never called him. He should probably have done that.

~

Louis didn’t want to say anything stupid. That’s why he left without more words. He said he wanted time away and he would come back. One day. He didn’t want to ruin the  _friendship_ on top of the relationship that had disintegrated in front of him.

It honestly didn’t look like the highway traffic was going to move anytime soon, so Louis lifted his hands off the steering wheel and reached for a packed of cigarettes; knowing how much Harry hated him smoking. As if out of spite, Louis lit them up one after another, chain smoking until the packet was empty and his lungs craved fresh air the insides of the car could not provide. But Louis wasn’t just literally suffocating- it was mental as well.  

_“What if I don’t really love him at all, but I was just too in love with the idea of it and that blinded me from realising all of this sooner? What if this is the way it’s going to be, always fighting, never happy anymore…. What if we can never be friends again…?  I can’t do anything now… it’s too late. And Harry, the poor boy is actually in love of course. Should I have stayed? Just to make sure his heart wouldn’t break and have him never fall in love again- for fear of how hard it’ll be to mend the pieces together once more? It’s all my fault that he’ll be sad and as much as I hate him now, I hate that idea more…”_

~

Louis shouldn’t have fallen that far in love with Harry. It just made falling out of it that much more painful. Louis certainly shouldn’t have picked up the phone whilst he was driving. But he did both of those things anyway.

It said  _Harry_  on the caller ID, how could he not pick it up? What if it was something drastic? Maintaining his grip on the steering wheel with one hand, his other reached for the phone and picked it up- putting it on speaker at least, attempting some level of safety.

There was no hello, no affectionate pet name, nothing to even suggest this was really Harry aside from the obvious tears running through his voice when he choked out a simple;  _“Hurry up and get back here”_

Louis tried to talk back, ask him why the sudden rush, what had happened, why he was crying… even just to say he loved him. Despite everything, just to stay it one last time, just in case. But he couldn’t. He didn’t. The first signs of regret seeped through into his bloodstream, mingling with the previous confidence he’d possessed, like the tears had become to seep through Louis’ shirt- him not realising he’d begun to cry. He didn’t love Harry anymore, so why did his tears still incite his own?

The line went dead. He’d hung up and Louis was still far, far away.

~

Louis sat in traffic for hours. If he’d been speeding earlier, he would’ve made it, and he’d probably have been home by now. With Harry. Making sure he was safe. But he wasn’t. Regret. Everywhere. Now filling every sense of his, restricting his breath, drowning out the radio, blocking the beeping of cars and the winds of the night threatening to pull at his perfectly side swept hair. If only it could have pulled him from the trance he were stuck in- the vicious cycle of ‘if only’. If only he had left earlier. If only he’d taken the back roads instead of the highway. If only he stayed with Harry and worked to make it better instead of giving up on them as fast as he fell in love with him. If only he called back Harry before the phone drained of battery…

Louis had nothing now.

~

Harry was dying. He didn’t know if it was physical or mental yet. Probably both. He chain-smoked another packet of cigarettes- something he’d picked up from Louis- letting the empty cartons accumulate in a pile on the floor. He found what looked like a bag of weed, and rolled them into joints too. A pile of empty glass bottles and an unknown bottle of pills on its side were near him too. He couldn’t breathe properly earlier- and the unfamiliar smoke clouding his lungs and the chemicals rushing through his system made everything worse on top of him now overwhelmed with a deep and very real fear and concern for what had happened to Louis. It had been three hours since the phone call, and Louis would only have been half an hour away at the time. Maybe he was never coming back… or maybe something had happened to him.

High. Intoxicated. Scared. Impatient. Craving some sense of excitement now that he lost Louis- the one who previously gave him that. Harry got in his car and began to drive- speeding- quite literally in search of Louis. He knew of places he could be and Harry took the back roads- thinking Louis would have done that too- he was always smart like that. But they were back roads he did not know. The back roads that were hard enough to navigate when sober- impossible after midnight and under the influence of things he could not even name. Police sirens sounded behind him, he was speeding after all. He panicked even more- not sure how to react. He knew that he could very easily drive faster and crash his car- ending his life and the threat of the police behind him. A tree would do fine. If not- a likely empty building. He wouldn’t want to hurt anyone else but himself. But he doesn’t crash it. He wasn’t thinking straight, but he had enough sense in him to realise that probably was not the best idea. He should have slowed down, turned… done something. Anything but take the risk he took next.   
He flung open the door with one hand and threw himself out of the car now hurtling towards a train line. He threw himself out not caring what happened to him- running off foreign feelings, hitting the road with more than a crack and an instantaneous pool of liquid surrounding him.

~

I don’t know if anyone plans the last words they say to one another. If they did, they’d likely be sentimental, or at least as simple as I Love You. It would make the whole idea of loss so much easier.

 _No._                                                                                                                             _Hurry up and get here._

~

What was Louis to have expected?

He expected something clean and easy. A breakup not to remember. No drama. He should have known that playing with someone like Harry was like playing with fire. There was no way he could get out of this without a scar left on his porcelain skin and without scorch marks left on his heart.

He didn’t expect to get home after being stuck in the same traffic for another hour and be gripped by an eerie silence, charge up his phone and find 80 missed calls from the band. Well, what was left of it anyway.

He called back Liam, of all of them hoping he could give him a clean cut answer, but was met with yells and cries- filled with more agony than he’d ever heard. It was the conclusion of a tragic play, the hero pulling the sword from his fatal wound and swearing vengeance on anyone and everyone, pain lacing every sound, yet a determination running underneath the message.    

_“YOU FUCKER!”_

Something had happened. Clearly. Louis stopped and waited, knowing any questions would be answered eventually. He kind of knew what happened. The wheels turned in his mind and yeah… He’d figured it out.

Louis walked right back outside, and hailed a taxi, all whilst on the phone to Liam. He showed the driver the address Zayn had texted him and continued to listen to Liam’s tirade. He numbly held the phone to his ear, freezing, dizzy, and scared. It was raining. Pouring. Thunder broke off the sound of Liam’s voice every few seconds. Louis couldn’t see outside the car either, blindingly trusting the driver to take him, hopefully avoiding any and all traffic.

Louis could hear voices on the other end telling Liam to quieten down a tad but he obviously didn’t care, continuing to scream at Louis.

_“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU LEFT YOUR SHIT WITH HIM. YOUR DRUGS, YOUR CIGARETTES; YOU MOTHERFUCKING IDIOT YOU DIDNT EVEN TAKE THE ALCOHOL WITH YOU. I CANT BELIEVE YOU ABANDONED HIM. YOU KNEW HE LOVED YOU. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THIS FOR?”_

Louis’ jaw slackened. He nodded. Yeah. He was crying now. He didn’t know when the tears started but his eyes stung and he tasted salt. The tears fell but they were nothing compared to the rain falling in sheets over his cab.

He didn’t love Harry anymore. Not like THAT. But he was still his brother, his best friend, his first love. He still meant something to him. He choked back any remarks he could have said to Liam and mumbled out a small “ _He’s not a child.”_

_“NO LOUIS HE’S NOT A CHILD DESPITE HOW YOU OFTEN TREATED HIM. BUT YOU DIDNT HAVE TO FUCKING LEAVE HIM WHEN HE WAS AT HIS MOST VULNERABLE! WHAT KIND OF SICK PIECE OF SHIT DOES THAT?”_

Louis didn’t have an answer. He never thought he would. He thought if he opened his mouth he’d either throw up or never talk again. Liam was right.

_“Fine Tommo. Just get your ass here as soon as you fucking can.”_

The line went dead. He’d hung up and Louis was still far, far away.

~

The storm was getting worse. Louis was worried. Places were losing power. He knew soon enough the hospital would too. Eventually the cab pulled up to a stop, right by the front doors, having broken the endless loop of traffic that normally surrounded it and that Louis had been stuck in the whole day. He chucked a note towards the front seat and hurtled out of the car, legs carrying him despite an immediate numbness overwhelming him from the icy rain. It accompanied the lack of emotion he felt- the easy freezing over of his heart- the effect of having been away from Harry- the one with fire in his veins- for so long.  

Louis ran up the stairs, not that he knew or remembered which corridors he was running down, merely trusting his instincts and old memories of being there years before.

Louis saw Zayn sitting outside a secluded room to his left. He skidded to a halt and walked slowly down the corridor, the feelings of dread increasing with each breath he took.   
He was just on the phone with Liam… at least Liam was safe- not that that was the conclusion one would draw from Zayn’s reaction.

Louis really, really didn’t want to walk into that room.

But he did. Tears pricked his eyes when he didn’t see doctors like he’d expected. He was in ER… If the boy on the bed were still alive, or even had a chance, he wouldn’t have been left alone. The tears wouldn’t stop. He can’t speak what was on his mind but it’s all registered once he sees which boys are still moving around the room.

Liam was furiously pacing, probably expecting him, and wiping under his eyes.  Niall sat on the floor, well upon looking properly; Niall was more really lying on the floor- staring up at the ceiling and choking, sobbing grossly and talking to himself idly, a crazed glossy look in his eyes.

Yeah. Harry. His Harry. The Harry he swore he no longer loved. Dead. Right there. Yeah. It all felt very real to Louis now and so did his feelings towards Harry. Of course he fucking loved him. What was he thinking?

Liam pushed past Niall, almost kicking him, legs not working the way he wanted them to- obviously weak, and ran into Louis , bumping his shoulder with his raised arm- at the same time shielding him from seeing the tears flow from his eyes. The words flew from Liam’s mouth, faster than Louis had ever heard him speak before.

_"You fucking missed it. You missed him. He’s gone. Are you happy now? You know, he told a joke; the little shit. He said he wanted to be smiling before he went. That stupid giraffe joke that makes no sense. He smiled even though none of us were laughing. We were all here for him except you. You know, he could still move, he could still talk. Barely… but they fixed him up enough for him to manage. He could have fucking lived if it weren’t for you. He apparently told a doctor to let him go if the storm got worse and there was a threat to power. He didn’t want them to waste their backup generator power on him. He cares so fucking much about other people. What did he do to deserve a selfish bastard like yourself? You know… he traced over his ‘Things I Can’t’ tattoo and then his last fucking words to us were… "Tell Louis I’m sorry.” He was fucking sorry. I can’t believe you aren’t.”_

Again. What was Louis to have expected?

To go to the hospital sit by Harry’s bed, hold his hand and feel the warmth slowly return- the fire spreading from his heart to warm the lives of those around him? Sit and listen to his heartbeat slowly increase as Louis’ hope did? Nurse him back to health and fall right back in love with him, as if the past years weren’t that difficult at all?

_No._

He stood, shoes glued to the floor, and the world revolving around him. Nurses came in and removed the body. The body where his hands had left no place untouched, the body he’d held in his arms. The body of the man he loved.

The boys filed out, abandoning him the same way he left Harry. Louis kind of just stood there.

He played with fire, but he was more than burned now. He felt nothing- nothing but pure pain.

~

Regret is a terrible feeling. It’s worse than anger, worse than sadness, disappointment, longing, hatred… because it’s lingering. Just when you think it’s over, you realise there is no chance that your feeling of desperation that things could be different- will ever go away.

Louis got out of the room, out of the building. Louis nodded in time with the words in his head telling him how stupid he was and how it was all his fault. Louis shook. Louis walked slowly. Louis considered throwing himself on the floor and screaming, hosting a tantrum like a child. But he didn’t. He just sat down on the floor of the elevator once the doors closed and let the waves rush over him. Not the waves of different emotions. Not the waves of the stages of grief. Just differing levels of regret.  
A realisation with every passing minute that Harry having just died was entirely his fault.

~

Harry wanted to be cremated. Lord only knows why. He wanted his ashes to be scattered out over the ocean- for him to reconnect to nature somehow. He didn’t want a gravestone for people to cry over and substitute in his name and Louis didn’t want to think about this- about any of it.

He was dragged to the crematorium by Liam. Apparently he needed to be there. Louis didn’t see it, he didn’t understand it, but he caved- too exhausted to fight back for his freedom. That boy was gone but he still had a firm grip on his heart- stopping all blood flow to his brain and any logic Louis would have previously summoned.  

Louis went, as did the other boys, but he barely knew what happened that day. He remembered Liam tugging on his arm… but the hand didn’t feel the same as Harry’s, not encircling his wrist with the same fervour, with the same electricity. He remembered going there and hearing the boys cry and scream and react the way most do to seeing their loved ones dead. But above all he remembered fire. That’s all. No longer did he see fireworks behind his eyes when thinking of Harry…. Now it was fire- pure- destructive- tantalizing.

It seems all too simple until you properly think about it. But fireworks and fire are not the same thing.

~

Louis threw the ashes and then walked away. He didn’t want to watch them wash away in time with the tide. A part of him feared that with it, would wash away any happy memories he had left of the boy he once loved. Once loved; it seems too definitive to put it that way. Louis still didn’t know how he really felt.

~

Louis finds a shirt. One. It’s the only clean one really. Niall says he’s let himself go a bit. Niall says that he wouldn’t be like this if Harry were around. Niall says he should probably clean up his act. Fuck Niall. Fuck him and his opinions.

**_Not heartbroken_ **

Two words on the shirt, over a pocket on the left, embroidered in black. So simple. But they make Louis think. Properly. He allows himself to be absorbed in his mind instead of pushing everything backwards with a cigarette, a drunken night and overdoses of painkillers like he usually did. He didn’t know if he had really fallen in love, and if he had; whether he’d fallen out of it either. It didn’t really matter. He knew that whatever happened, he was not heartbroken. He refused to be.

His heart was not broken.

No one’s truly is.

Think of your heart like a fine china vase. We all have one. Some guard theirs with their lives and others play with theirs like they’re worth next to nothing. Some are perfectly new, and shiny- untarnished, without years of life exposure. Other have pieces falling off- handles that people have shattered, edges that others have chipped, paint that has been scratched and worn. Some people leave bigger marks than others but it’s simply too big for one person to break completely. If you saw it from only one angle… it could seem broken- even beyond repair. But with every person you meet who touches you somehow- lover or not- they pick up a piece and hand it right back to you- allowing you to mend whatever damage others have done. Whatever it might feel like; you never stay ‘heartbroken’ for long. Every day of your life is a quest not to find a new sadness by which to define yourself, but to restore your heart to the way it was, the way everyone’s can be.

_Live through this and you won’t look back._

Louis just needed to find a way how.

His mind flew. All over the place- flew back in time, over the months it had been. He remembered the way he realised that he did actually love the boy, but then he remembered that one day with the boys and the fire. The fire. He allowed the feelings of  _that day_  to fill him up once more.

Louis didn’t just see fire and crave it, he became it. There was fire in his heart, fire in his veins, fire behind his crystalline blue eyes and now fire in his hands.   
He went to the backyard. He stopped. He pulled a black lighter from the back pocket of his jeans. He had stood here before. Nothing in Louis’ life was inherently new. Just very different.   
Normally he’d be lighting cigarettes to blow away his thoughts, but now he needed the wind to whisk away the smoky remnants of a past life. So he lit a fire. Small, simple, but effective.

He started running erratically. He ran inside and brought back out with him things he found and he’d empty them from his arms and onto the fire. He threw on Harry’s clothes. They were too big for him anyway. He threw on Harry’s books and diaries. His writing was not something Louis would smile upon reading anymore. He threw on Harry’s furniture. The things Louis would never use and never saw a purpose for in the first place. He threw on anything and everything that reminded him of that boy. Any tears that Louis cried, unwillingly spilling from his eyes, dried up in the heat that was also reflected upon his cheeks. It was embarrassing how much he’d grown to love him, and how wrong he was when he walked away, but at the same time Louis had never felt more alive. Finally watching someone else burn to give him light amongst life’s darkness. He was channelling the flames and letting them overwhelm him, letting the colours light up his face and the soot coat in his hair. But it still wasn’t enough.

He went inside and admired the aftershocks of his work, eyes glazing over the insides of his once lively house… Home. The way it was only half full now; ransacked, robbed, cleansed of what stopped feeling natural, but at the same time it was not empty either. Louis things littered the floor, like the memories of him still in Louis mind and that wasn’t good enough for him.

Louis went to the bathroom, wanting to wash off his hands and try something else. That was before he saw the photograph. It was a Polaroid Harry had stuck up, albeit a cute one at that, but Louis still wanted to get rid of it.

Maybe he’d regret this years later or even upon waking tomorrow. The immediate destruction of years of his life. The complete removal of memories from his own home.

It didn’t matter.

Louis changed his tactic. Rather than grabbing whatever he saw, he hunted. He hunted down every last relic of this relationship, every token to remind him of Harry. He threw them in the sink and the objects slowly accumulated, opposite to the burning pile outside; slowly disintegrating to a mere heap of ashes.

Louis set fire to the photo of him and Styles. He tore it in half and tossed it in the sink, not caring how close his hands were to the flame watching the remaining few items melt away in front of his eyes, slowly but surely. Like how it felt when he thought the flame of his relationship was dying.

Louis finally looked up and met his eyes in the mirror saw he was losing himself. He was breathing heavily through parted lips, face stained with the soot from his hands, the colour running down with the sweat that had been accumulating for hours. He pushed it back, up and through his hair as he let out a series of pants, unable to catch his breath. Louis tugged on his hair. It was long. Probably too long. He grew it out with Harry- until Harry was comfortable with how long his was. It was a kind gesture on Louis’ part. But now it was too much and he needed to change. He was finally realising how often he’d lit himself on fire, tore himself apart, threw himself in the road just to make Harry happy. They seemed like small things, but Louis wasn’t even his own person anymore, living in the shadow of someone else’s expectations. Maybe that’s why he left.

But then he realised that Harry was the fire in Louis life and he and quite literally thrown himself in the road for Louis. If only he could stop thinking. This wasn’t working. He kept jumping between “I really did love him” and “I did the right thing.”

He shook his head, disentangling his hands from his hair to grip either side of the sink, narrowly avoiding the burning contents. Fuck this feeling. He would continue if it meant he’d stop fucking thinking about him. If it meant things could be different from now on.

Louis handled the bottle of cologne previously atop the bedside table. Bleu De Chanel. Harry’s favourite. Any years old fond in Louis’ eyes at the mere memory of the hours he’d spent savouring that boys scent vanished to be replaced by an infatuation for the flickering flames in front of him.

He wrenched off the lid and tipped the bottle on its side, teasing himself with the idea. He didn’t need to for long- very soon succumbing to his urges and impulsively the muscles in his hand turned the bottle on its head and he poured lavishly; a chef perfecting his final meal- he added it to the now growing flames in the bathroom sink.

The very same bathroom sink they’d fucked on many times before. They’d broken the mirror whilst at it once. He tore his gaze away, not wanting to remember that now. Not wanting to be plagued with memories like that ever again. God, everything in this house reminded him of that boy. He’d burn it to the ground if he could.  

Speaking of which; outside there was barely anything left.

Louis needed a drink. And of fucking course, the only wine in this house was the one they’d saved from the day he and Harry met. Fuck that. He opened it, swirling the rich red liquid around in the bottle. He took one gulp- not caring how it slipped from the corners of his mouth and ran down the shirt he wore. It added to the black marks and obscured the ‘heart’ of the words. Louis was ‘not broken’ either.

The wine was bitter. He could taste it staining his teeth. It was an aftertaste he physically shook from. He’d scrape it off his tongue if he could. He regretted it to the point where he went back to the bathroom and without a hesitation- poured the alcohol over the flames. He may have flunked a couple of subjects in school, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew alcohol and fire didn’t go well together.   
On the contrary; they went perfectly.

The flames leapt up in front of him and Louis reached out his hands. He touched them, played with them; let them curl around his wrist, cradling his hands better than Harrys ever could have. Yes it hurt. It stung but Louis ignored it. Anything to rid himself of the tears which he knew would sting his scorched cheeks more, the nightmares which would plague him and pull on his heart, constricting his rib cage for years to come. Anything to provide a physical pain to mask the mental pain he’d never be free from.

~

When there’s nothing left to burn. You have to set yourself on fire. Only then, can things change. Only then can you rise from your own ashes. But the china vase you have for a heart- is fireproof. No matter how much pain you are in- you are never truly heartbroken, no matter what you’ve done.

**~~~**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Based a bit off "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" by Stars  
> Hope you liked :))


End file.
